GWG's III
Part III: Never Gonna Let This DownOperation Spectral Priest...What are we on now, hexux?We advance. Ruiz discovers a xeno on turn 2, eating a reaction shot. She gives better than she gets, dealing three damage to the xeno's one. Owusu strides out into an uncovered position to deal a miss. The xeno's buddy gives him a boosy, helping him crit Owusu into oblivion. Hudson finishes the alien, Ruiz advances, missing the first alien's companion. That xeno kills Ruiz, panicking Hall (the farthest away), who shoots (and misses) Hudson. You know, I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a differential rate of panic results based on difficulty. On Easy, no one ever shot a friend and shooting enemies was frequent; here, it seems like every third or fourth panicker shoots at a buddy. Hudson spots a trio of advancing xenos and misses the reaction shot; the shot xeno returns the favor more accurately, with a Panic-Plas
TM shot that panics Hudson despite only dealing one damage. He shoots back in panic, a miss. Hall advances, killing that xeno but triggering a squad of three more. Hall complains about a single xeno flanking his position seconds before getting plasma-pasted all over the road. Hudson advances, takes a scratch from a reaction shot, and empties his assault rifle at a xeno...who clings to life with one hit point. Hudson avoids fire, circles the car he's hiding behind, and chucks his grenade at two xenos. He promptly gets killed.
Operation Spectral Priest HeptuxI try a hybrid advance; one person on each side does the cautious, Overwatching advance I normally do, but Owusu and Hudson do a dashing aggressive advance. Also, the squad clusters together a bit more. A xeno runs forward, not triggering Overwatch but yes killing Owusu in one shot. Its buddy kills Hudson, panicking Hall, The two bastards are a bit out of grenade range, so Ruiz shoots one...dealing one damage. The other one gets buffed and kills Ruiz in one shot.
Hall advances, dodges a reaction shot, and discovers is foe (the aforementioned wounded sectoid) is again just out of grenade range. So he shoots it. Lethally. Another one, glowy-headed, blows up the chunky little thing Hall was using for cover (note the past tense). Hall advances to a nearby car and drops the buffed bastard to one health. The xeno, no longer glowy-headed, advances, shooting Hall for one damage and panicking him. It gets re-buffed, and shoots for another one damage. Hall Socks the now-2-hp bastard...for one damage.
(For those who have forgotten, Socks was the nickname of Anastasia Smirnova, my best Assault in my first playthrough. Verbing it means I'm moving a soldier adjacent to an enemy and shooting it.)
The xeno gets buffed back to two health (DAMMIT THAT'S CHEATING!), five others move into view, and the one Hall nearly killed runs past him before dealing a lethal shot.
I think I have a good reason to stick to Easy.
Unless you have aiming angles turned on the full defense bonus from cover is always applied except in cases where you're flanking them. So there are poor firing positions, and flanked. Using explosives to destroy their cover is a reliable way to get good shots.
What is flanking, anyways? I've done it sometimes, but I haven't figured out exactly how to flank.
Distance is important in aim. Even if you're in full cover, that Sectoid two tiles away can still kill you with ease.
Well duh. But I've advanced often, only to discover that the hit-chance is exactly the same.